Iowa Almanac for Friday, July 26, 2024
"Fail-Safe"
Eugene Burdick was born in Sheldon in northwest Iowa in 1918. He and his family moved to California when he was a boy, and he wound up attending Stanford University. After earning a Ph.D. from Oxford, he worked as a professor in the political science department of the University of California-Berkeley.
His talent at researching the most urgent problems of our civic culture led him to write a series of scholarly articles, which gained him recognition throughout the world. But it was when he turned those talents toward fictionalized books and movies that he reached an even wider audience.
Among his best known books were 1958's "The Ugly American", and "Fail Safe", written in 1962. Both became book-of-the-month-club selections, and then major motion pictures. Audiences became concerned, some for the first time, about the basic problems of foreign policy and national defense.
"Fail Safe" starred Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau, and described how Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States led to an accidental thermonuclear first strike after an error sent a group of U.S. bombers to bomb Moscow. The movie was released in 1964.
A year later, on July 26th, 1965, Burdick died suddenly from a heart attack while playing tennis. Despite living with diabetes and a chronic heart condition, Burdick was a man who could not say "no"--writing, travelling, competing in sports, and teaching, despite failing health.
Many Americans first learned of the gravity of global relations when reading books or seeing movies based on the work of Iowa native Eugene Burdick, who died at age 46, on this date in 1965.
And that's Iowa Almanac for July 26th...Listen to the extended audio version of today's story by clicking on the audio player above.
"Fail-Safe"
Eugene Burdick was born in Sheldon in northwest Iowa in 1918. He and his family moved to California when he was a boy, and he wound up attending Stanford University. After earning a Ph.D. from Oxford, he worked as a professor in the political science department of the University of California-Berkeley.
His talent at researching the most urgent problems of our civic culture led him to write a series of scholarly articles, which gained him recognition throughout the world. But it was when he turned those talents toward fictionalized books and movies that he reached an even wider audience.
Among his best known books were 1958's "The Ugly American", and "Fail Safe", written in 1962. Both became book-of-the-month-club selections, and then major motion pictures. Audiences became concerned, some for the first time, about the basic problems of foreign policy and national defense.
"Fail Safe" starred Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau, and described how Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States led to an accidental thermonuclear first strike after an error sent a group of U.S. bombers to bomb Moscow. The movie was released in 1964.
A year later, on July 26th, 1965, Burdick died suddenly from a heart attack while playing tennis. Despite living with diabetes and a chronic heart condition, Burdick was a man who could not say "no"--writing, travelling, competing in sports, and teaching, despite failing health.
Many Americans first learned of the gravity of global relations when reading books or seeing movies based on the work of Iowa native Eugene Burdick, who died at age 46, on this date in 1965.
And that's Iowa Almanac for July 26th...Listen to the extended audio version of today's story by clicking on the audio player above.
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Copyright 2024 by Stein Enterprises, L.L.C.
All Rights Reserved.
No use of the material is allowed without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Copyright 2024 by Stein Enterprises, L.L.C.